Top 10 Modern Teen Bitches

Julia Kukiewiczcontributed Top 10 Modern Teen Bitches for today’s Top 10 Tuesday column. She is an editor of UK DVD rental site Choosedvdrental. The site reviews all the big UK DVD rental companies – like Lovefilm – and also covers DVD news and new releases. If you have a Top 10 of your own to contribute, email me at eric@scene-stealers.com. Here’s Julia:

When I first suggested this Top 10 to Eric he said, with as much barely-restrained horror as one can manage in an email, ‘you do mean characters, right?’ Yes, Eric. Not only for reasons of good taste but because as much, as Hollywood loves a train wreck, its heartless teen bitches tend to be limited to the silver screen.

Maybe it’s because the teen bitch is a potent mix made more for the school corridor than the red carpet and, in reality, more male fantasy than either. She’s both sexily assured and absolutely forbidden fruit; smart enough to get her way and dumb enough to pull a “Fatal Attraction”-lite stunt at any moment. Here are my Top 10 Modern Teen Bitches.

One more thing: I don’t know why so many of these films are from 1999 either. Blame Lewinsky in ’98.

Is Tracy a bitch? She just wants to win the school election, after all, and what could be more wholesome than that? Was it her fault that she had a little affair with a teacher? Or that her never ending peppiness was enough to send his well-meaning friend Mr. McAllister (Matthew Broderick) over the edge?

If films have taught us anything it’s that nothing creates a bitch quicker than louche boredom and a shedload of money. This modern adaptation of ‘Les Liaisons Dangereuses’ proves that it was true in the 18th century too. Not only is Kathryn willing and able to manipulate her way to the queen-bee spot at her exclusive private school, her cocaine-filled cross has had a generation scouring antique shops ever since.

Although it wasn’t filmed in black and white, writer/director Rian Johnson’s “Brick” took the idea of the insular world of high school and ran with it straight into film noir territory. Kara is the film’s femme fatale and queen of the dramatic society. When she’s not drawing innocents into her drug-dealing web, she keeps the younger male drama students at her beck and call like puppies.

After high school, the head of the A group has become a heavily pregnant weather girl still married to the ex-head of the football team. Her bitchiness might be small fry compared to some of the others on this list – sticking magnets to Romy’s neck brace was about the worst thing the two heroines were able to dredge up – but she gets her comeuppance in spectacular style, through the medium of dance.

Bitch, please: “Unbelievable! They’re as deluded about their lives as they are about those HIDEOUS clothes”

6. Pretty Persuasion (2005) Kimberley (played by Evan Rachel Wood)

An aspiring actress, Kimberley decides to play her greatest role to date … as a sexual harassment victim. It’s when explaining the facts of life to Middle Eastern frenemie Randa (reason for friendship: “to make me look more attractive standing next to you”) that her real inner bitch comes out, though.

Bitch, please: “I mean, there are just so many stupid, annoying, worthless people on this planet that just, like, get in the way of what you want.”

5. Jennifer’s Body (2009) Jennifer Check (played by Megan Fox)

“Jennifer’s Body” can hardly be accused of subtlety – really, a teenage girl that turns man-eater once a month? With a friend called Needy? – but that’s fine because it just lets Megan Fox dial up the slutty-craziness.

Bitch, please: “I am not insecure… God that’s a joke, how could I ever be insecure? I was the snowflake queen.”

4. Camp (2003) Fritzi Wagner (played by Anna Kendrick)

The Eve Harrington of a misfit-friendly music camp, Fritzi Wagner (played by last year’s Best Supporting Actress nominee Anna Kendrick) memorably poisons icy uber-bitch and co-star Jill (Alana Allen) in order to sing ‘Ladies Who Lunch’ from ‘Company’, fake martini in hand. Amazing.

Bitch, please: “Save the speech, rummy. She’s fucked, I’m ready, and the goddamn show must go on. So let’s get cracking, shall we?”

3. Mini’s First Time (1999) Mini (played by Nikki Reed)

Bitch is perhaps too kind a term for Mini who kills her mother – with poison and then, when that takes a little too long for her taste, by gassing her in a car – in order to sleep with her stepdad. Did we mention that she first seduced him while getting her thrills working as a high-class escort?

Bitch, please: “With desire, focus, and the willingness to treat every obstacle as an opportunity, it’s amazing what you can accomplish.”

2. Mean Girls (2004) Regina George (played by Rachel McAdams)

Regina keeps a ‘burn book’ to remind herself just how much better she is than everyone else and keeps the school in line with a calculated campaign of insults disguised as compliments and very short miniskirts. Still, when your mum’s got fake boobs so fake that her little yappy dog can use them as a chew toy without her noticing you would be wouldn’t you?

Bitch, please: “Boo, you whore.”

1. Heathers (1989) Heather Chandler (played by Kim Walker)

Despite downing Drano fairly early on in the film, the first head Heather still manages to out bitch every one else all while wearing some serious shoulderpads.

I love her so much, here are three of her best bits.

Bitch, please: “Grow up Heather, bulimia’s so ’87.”

“You were nothing before you met me. You were playing Barbies with Betty Finn.”

“Well, fuck me gently with a chainsaw. Do I look like Mother Theresa?”